


Winner, Winner

by a_big_apple



Series: Benevolence [3]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Candlenights, Food, Gen, Light Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-24
Updated: 2017-12-24
Packaged: 2019-02-19 10:41:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13122054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_big_apple/pseuds/a_big_apple
Summary: The same meal in three different situations; or, the one in which time heals all Taako's wounds.





	Winner, Winner

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AmazingSuperiority](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmazingSuperiority/gifts).



> Written for the TAZ Secret Santa exchange. I got octolingkiera, and had a fantastic time writing this! <3 I hope you don't mind a tiny bit of angst at the start, I sat down to write and it just happened. But there's a happy ending!

**Eight Years Ago**

Three days after, Taako wakes from a restless trance to find the wagon dark and still.

Sazed didn’t have much of his own, but what little he had is gone. The worn case of kitchen knives he bought after Taako told him every chef worth a damn had their own. The burlap bag he always brought with him to market. The pack he was carrying the day he first appeared at the end of Taako’s show, awed and shy and hoping for a job. The bedroll he laid out next to Taako’s just a few hours ago.

Some of the food is gone. So is the moneybox. Numbly, Taako checks his secret stashes. All six are still there, but it’s cold comfort; he’s alone, definitively jobless, and a murderer.

He’ll have to abandon the wagon. Even if he covered the name painted on the side, he’d still be too easy to find. He tucks the gold he has left into the seams of his traveling cloak and the hidden pockets in the underarms of his shirt, stuffs a few changes of clothes and the essentials of his kitchen into his own pack, and tops it off with as much road food as he can fit. There’s still so much left that he can’t bring, or that will rot too quickly to be of any use; they were planning two more shows in Glamour Springs.

There’s another chicken in the icebox, intended for a practice run that he never got around to doing. Too busy fighting with Sazed over the fucking show name, as if that shit actually mattered. He stares at the chicken for a long time before taking it out and setting it on the counter. Lights the oven. Pulls the sack of garlic out of the cupboard, branches of rosemary from where it hangs, elderberries from the bowl on the counter. The cooking wine he used for the show is gone, though he can’t imagine why Sazed would want it; he opens a fresh bottle instead, takes an extremely generous gulp of it before cracking the heads of garlic apart.

Taako crushes the first of the thirty cloves under his knife, and the sharp scent of it wafts up immediately; as it hits his nose his stomach clenches with sudden force and he twists aside just in time, heaving so hard it sends him to his knees. He hasn’t eaten in...well, in three days, so heaving is all it is, awful involuntary spasms that fade just as quickly as they came, leaving him trembling.

Okay. That was unexpected.

He gives up after eight attempts, pushes open the flap on the stage side of the wagon and shoves the pile of cloves out. He rinses the sour taste from his mouth with more wine, and it still tastes like fucking Gogurt but it helps his hands stop shaking. Shouldering his pack, Taako descends from the wagon; he leaves the door wide open and doesn’t look back. The sun is just beginning to rise, and he puts it at his back and walks west toward the coast.  
  


**Two Years Ago**

Angus is too wired to sleep. The Reclaimers returned three days ago with another relic after being gone less than an hour, but he hasn’t been able to pin any of them down about it since. Merle is reluctant to talk to him generally, and he’s been spending a lot of time staring at the sky with a ponderous expression. Magnus patted Angus on the head in his usual friendly way, but his mind was clearly deep in some unknown problem. Of the three of them, Taako is the best at going about his life like nothing’s wrong--but he was distracted during Magic Day, intensely focused on teaching Angus to warm food safely with Prestidigitation but zoning out and fiddling with his Stone of Farspeech with worrying frequency.

There are so many mysteries to solve on the moon base, Angus might never get to the bottom of them all. He has a chance at one of them tonight, at least: there’s a light blazing in the dome across the quad. The base doesn’t always run on a strictly diurnal schedule, but it’s late enough now that only the graveyard shift guards are still awake, and the dining hall kitchen _should_ be dark and quiet. He can’t be sure who he’ll find there, but he can make an educated guess.

It’s simple enough to get across the quad--he’s as free to roam the base as any other Seeker, even in the middle of the night--but he has to be very, very quiet to sneak up on an elf. He pushes the dining hall door open with painstaking slowness, then finally slips inside and crosses the hall to the kitchen. There’s a swinging door here, which will be easier to get through soundlessly, but Angus pauses to listen first.

Huddling close to the crack of the door, he can first make out the sizzle of oil and the smell of meat cooking. On top of it, sounds of motion: a waltzing rhythm, slide-thud-slide. When he peeks cautiously inside, Taako’s back is to him. There’s a dark blue dutch oven on the stovetop, which must be the source of the sizzling and smell. Taako is prepping at the counter, but his body blocks Angus’ view. Eventually, Taako’s task changes: he sets down the wide-bladed knife he was holding, and crackling sounds are quickly followed by garlic peels piling up at Taako’s side. Angus can smell the sharpness of it now, creeping further into the room as the pile grows.

He’s fully inside by the time Taako turns to the pot on the stove, removing what look to be chicken thighs and dumping a heap of garlic cloves and thin slices of onion in. Delicately he pinches sprigs from a handful of rosemary and tosses them in too, and the aroma filling the kitchen makes Angus’ mouth water. At last, when Taako’s placing the chicken back into the pot with one hand and pouring wine in with the other, Angus’ stomach gives him away with a growl.

Taako’s ears flick back toward the sound, but he doesn’t give any other indication he’s heard; still, Angus knows he’s been caught. He ventures a little closer, to the side so he can get a better view. Taako’s ear follows him, but instead of looking over now that Angus is edging into his field of vision, he just covers the pot and withdraws his wand from his apron pocket.

When he taps the lid, a long shower of bright sparks erupts from the tip, cascading down the sides of the pot like water and crackling in the flame beneath. It looks like Prestidigitation, but on a level Angus wouldn’t even think of attempting; his suspicion is proven when Taako lifts the lid again and ladles out a pool of sauce on a platter, perfectly reduced. He plates the chicken on top, golden brown and looking ready to slide right off the bone.

Angus has seen Taako perform high level spells many times, but he’s never once used magic on his cooking in Angus’ presence. Angus knows he used to, and has pieced together most of why he doesn’t anymore, but can’t determine if this aberration is because Taako wasn’t planning for Angus to snoop, or if something else has caused him to relax his vigilance. After a long, suddenly thick silence, Taako finally turns toward him.

“Come and do the garnish.”

Their eyes meet briefly when he speaks, and then Taako’s skitter away to a bowl of elderberries on the counter. He tips his head toward it. Angus steps up to break off a few clusters, lays them as artfully as he can to one side of the chicken.

“Like this?” he ventures, watching Taako’s face. There’s a shadow of a smile on it, a lightness Angus wasn’t expecting.

“Just like that, bubbeleh,” he murmurs, and his hand brushes Angus’ shoulder. From nowhere, he produces a fork and holds it out; Angus takes it hesitantly, then spears himself a bite of chicken and sauce and a soft clove of garlic.

It melts on his tongue, perfectly cooked and delicious. In his very limited experience, Taako’s food always is. “It’s amazing, sir.”

Taako gestures with a little smile, and Angus takes a few more bites. There’s something happening here he doesn’t understand, but he’s tired now and hungry, so he quietly eats his fill.

Taako just watches him, uncharacteristically silent; then, when Angus lays his fork down, Taako takes the platter across the kitchen and dumps the lion’s share of food into the garbage.

“Sir!” Angus says, so startled he can’t formulate anything else. Taako wipes the platter clean with another spell, turns to the pot and the cutting board and the rest to do the same. “Don’t you...even want to try it?”

Wand waving, Taako stacks the clean dishes with Levitate, lets go of the Light spell illuminating the room. In the sudden darkness, a warm hand settles between Angus’ shoulder blades to guide him out. “I’m allergic to garlic,” Taako says, and they leave the kitchen.   
  


**Now**

The private wing of Taako’s house at the Amazing School of Magic is stuffed full of people in varying states of inebriation; so many of them, in fact, that the party has spilled out into the garden amid the twinkling orbs and torches from Lup’s Dancing Lights cantrip. Trays of hors d'oeuvres and drinks of all kinds float through the crowds both inside and outside, eventually cycling back to the kitchen where Taako and Ren will load them up and send them out again. There’s a huge Candlenights bush in the corner of the sitting room, festooned with popcorn-and-cranberry garland and softly flickering votives, and around the base of it are mountains of gifts to tackle after dinner.

It’s a beautiful house, and a beautiful party, and a beautiful night; it still baffles Lup, sometimes, that they made it this far. That her brother is successful and in love, that she has a body again and her lover again and her _family_ again. She’s so fucking happy, and the buoyant night calls for a buoyant drink, so she snags a tumbler of bubbly champagne punch from a passing tray, and hooks three shrimp by their tails from another.

Across the tray from her, a face peeks up from under a fancy feathered cap and two small hands reach for the cocktail sauce, a shrimp in each. Lup grins. “Double fisting it, huh?”

Angus is just tall enough for her to be able to see his grin. “Taako wouldn’t let me in the kitchen to get breakfast _or_ lunch. I should have stayed with Magnus for winter break this time.”

Lup scoffs. “As if he has anything but dog food and the makings of grilled cheese in his kitchen.”

“That’s not--well, that’s mostly true,” Angus admits, stuffing a shrimp in his mouth. “I guess I’ll just have more room for dinner!”

“Don’t eat so many shrimp, then,” Lup teases, then chomps all three of hers at once. Angus giggles gratifyingly, and the tray floats off.

When it’s gone the kid sidles up to her, chewing on his second shrimp and fiddling the tail between his fingertips. “Do you know what he’s making? He wouldn’t tell me, said it was going to be a surprise.”

“Well, he did swear me to secrecy, but…” Lup leans down to murmur close to Angus’ ear, “it’s thirty garlic clove chicken. One of our Auntie’s recipes from our home plane, so it’s definitely going to be _out of this world_.”

A grin spreads across Angus’ face, the grin of a person who knows exactly what they’re in for. Then his smile falters, and he leans in again. “But...what’s _he_ going to eat?” Angus asks, soft like a secret. Lup’s confusion must show on her face, because Angus continues. “Isn’t he allergic to garlic?”

“Did he tell you that?” Lup replies, and Angus nods. Interesting. “When?”

“A couple of years ago?”

Lup feels the tension trickle out of her shoulders. “He was pulling your leg, kiddo. He’s only allergic to peanuts.” Angus nods slowly, as if this information was the last piece in a puzzle. It probably is. Angus likes puzzles, and her brother is a tantalizingly cryptic mess--it should be no surprise that the kid seems to get why this is a special menu.

He’s looking anxious about it now though, like he’s worried he said something he shouldn’t have, so Lup smiles and tugs his cap down over his eyes. “Go find yourself a hot chocolate. I’ll hustle dinner along, he won’t kick _me_ out of the kitchen.”

She makes her way there through the noisy throng, blowing Barry a kiss when she spots him in a corner with Kravitz having a nerd talk, plucking a drink out of the hands of Merle’s sugared-up kid, sampling a mini taco when Killian pushes the tray toward her with a full mouth and a thumbs up. When she finally gets to her brother, he’s looking calm: hair swept up into a gem-studded swirl, a glittering gown on under his apron, bare toes peeking out as he moves around the room. Ren is at the island, putting the finishing touches on a salad; on the other end, a tiny old woman is piping delicate decorations onto a tray of cookies.

“Lup!” Ren exclaims as soon as she spots her. “Would you please tell Taako to plate the ding-dang chicken already? I tried it, it was delicious. Paloma tried it, it was delicious. It doesn’t need to reduce any more, and we’re running out of nibbles for the trays--”

“Lup, my dearest sister, my twin, heart of my heart,” Taako says over Ren’s fretting, “try this and tell me if it tastes like Auntie’s, you are literally the only other person who knows what the sauce consistency should be.”

He holds out a wooden spoon expectantly, and Lup grins, stepping close to get a mouthful. She closes her eyes, letting the taste bring her back to that cluttered kitchen, the warmth of the wood stove, the flowery smell that clung to Auntie, always. Taako’s arm slides around her waist, and she lays her head on his shoulder. “It’s perfect, take it off the fucking heat already.”

He laughs and squeezes her, and when she opens her eyes again he’s pulling the pot to a cool burner with Mage Hand. She laces their fingers together on her hip. “Listen, bro. You good?”

“Hell yeah,” he says against her forehead, like a kiss.


End file.
